{"id":13615,"date":"2021-06-17T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/development.plato-philosophy.org\/frog-and-toad-being-alone-together\/"},"modified":"2021-06-17T13:22:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T20:22:00","slug":"frog-and-toad-being-alone-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/frog-and-toad-being-alone-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Frog and Toad — Being “Alone Together”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have written\u00a0<\/span>before in this blog<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>about the Arnold Lobel story “Alone” in\u00a0<\/span>Days with Frog and Toad<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>and I also write about it in\u00a0<\/span>Seen and Not Heard<\/a><\/i>. It’s one of my favorites. And I have been thinking a lot lately about the phrase Lobel uses at the end of the story when he tells us that Frog and Toad spend the rest of a day “sitting alone together.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What does it mean to be “alone together?” \u00a0During the pandemic and its widespread \u201cstay at home\u201d orders around the world, which meant that many of us spent months isolated in our homes, the phrase \u201calone together\u201d became a kind of slogan, intended to convey the message that \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together\u201d; that is, there is solidarity in collectively staying home to stop the spread of disease. Social distancing does not have to mean social isolation \u2013 we can stay connected without being physically together. We are each of us both alone and not alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As the pandemic thankfully seems to be coming to an end, I wonder about\u00a0the longer-term effects of the pandemic\u2019s enforced seclusion on our attitudes toward solitude and social connection. As it eases, I have been starting to process the intense isolation and dislocation I felt over the past 15 months. I think in some ways it was true that we did experience being “alone together”\u00a0\u2013\u00a0we knew other people were feeling a similar sense of isolation, and this fostered a shared camaraderie and understanding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now, as society starts to move back toward less social distancing and more ordinary socializing, I\u00a0wonder\u00a0if for some people\u00a0\u2014\u00a0who aren’t getting out and being with other people, for many different reasons\u00a0\u2014\u00a0these feelings of isolation might not be more intense than they were\u00a0during the pandemic, in the sense that now those feelings are more individual and less widely shared. Now we’re not\u00a0alone together; we’re just alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Lobel\u2019s story, I think that the meaning of “alone together” is very different from the\u00a0meaning\u00a0of the pandemic slogan. In the story, Frog and Toad are not socially distanced nor do they do seem at all emotionally disconnected; they are together in a meaningful and genuine way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I imagine, rather, that they are \u201calone together\u201d because they are so comfortable with each other that they can each be \u201calone\u201d while they are together; that is, they are both able, when together, to behave in the same way that they would if they were by themselves. We can be “alone together” with other people when there is such a depth of comfort and trust between us that we don’t have to shield our feelings, thoughts, reactions, and impulses\u00a0\u2013\u00a0we can just be ourselves completely in the way we can be when we are alone. How wonderful that is, to have\u00a0people\u00a0in your life around whom you feel absolutely safe and accepted, and loved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jana Mohr Lone is the director of the\u00a0<\/span>University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children<\/a>, and her most recent book is\u00a0<\/span>Seen and Not Heard<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have written\u00a0before in this blog\u00a0about the Arnold Lobel story “Alone” in\u00a0Days with Frog and Toad\u00a0and I also write about it in\u00a0Seen and Not Heard. It’s one of my favorites. And I have been thinking a lot lately about the phrase Lobel uses at the end of the story when he tells us that Frog … Frog and Toad — Being “Alone Together”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19-pandemic","category-wondering-aloud"],"yoast_head":"\nFrog and Toad - Being "Alone Together" - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Frog and Toad -- Being "Alone Together" - a post from PLATO - The Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/frog-and-toad-being-alone-together\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frog and Toad - 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